 By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
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Pictured are former 11th congressional district congressman Louis Stokes, and his wife, Jeanette "Jay" Stokes. Louis Stokes died in 2015 at his home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a prominent Cleveland suburb. He was 90-years-old. His wife Jay died on Sat., Oct 30 at 83-years-old
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SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio- Jeanette "Jay" Stokes, the widow of the late Louis Stokes, Ohio's first Black congressman and a lawyer and Civil Rights icon who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years and represented Ohio's largely Black 11th congressional district, died Saturday. She was 83.
The wake for Mrs Stokes is Fri, Nov. 5 from 12:30 pm-1:00 pm at E.F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home in Cleveland. It will be followed by a 1 pm funeral, also at the funeral home.
A John Hay High School graduate and former model and successful realtor, Jay Stokes was Louis Stokes' second wife and was 22 when she married the divorced father of three in 1960. She was the stepmother of former Cleveland judge Angela Stokes, the grandmother of Cleveland Fox8 News reporter Alex Stokes, and the mother of Lori Stokes, her only child with Louis Stokes and the evening news anchor for the 5, 6, and 10 pm news at Fox 5 NY WNYW in New York City.
Jay was active in the community and was a recipient of numerous awards, including recognition by the Phyllis Wheatley Association in 1994, and by General Mills Inc in 1998 for outstanding leadership in promoting health education. Mt Zion Church in Lakewood recognized her in 2015 as an "Amazing Woman of Courage."
Constituents of Louis Stokes, particularly in the Black community, also knew her as a supportive wife and mother, and a kind woman who understood the demands that come with being the spouse of a dedicated member of Congress.
Congressman Stokes died at their home in Shaker Heights, Ohio in 2015 after publicly announcing that he had brain cancer. He was 90-years-old
A loyal Democrat, the former federal lawmaker served nearly 15 terms in Congress representing Ohio's 11th congressional district, which includes Cleveland and was formerly the 21st congressional district. He retired from Congress in 1998.
A Civil Rights attorney who argued a celebrated stop-and-frisk case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968, Louis Stokes was a staunch advocate for the poor and disenfranchised and a one time chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. He also was a member of the prominent Ways and Means Committee in the House.
As the then head of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he led investigations in the 1970s into the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
After a retiring from Congress, Stokes worked as an executive attorney at the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm of Squires, Sanders and Dempsey, a position he held until 2012.
His younger brother and only sibling, the late Carl B. Stokes, was the first Black mayor of the city of Cleveland and of a major American city. The Stokes brothers grew up in poverty and were raised by a single working mother in the Outhwaite Homes, a housing project on Cleveland's majority Black east side.
They went on to become self educated and to make history in Cleveland, and nationwide. Carl Stokes, also a former U.S. ambassador to Seychelles and Cleveland judge who died in 1996 of cancer of the esophagus, was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967 when it was majority White, and his older brother Louis Stokes won a seat in Congress the following year in 1968, the first Black in Ohio to reach such a milestone and a congressional seat he would retain for nearly 30 years until his retirement.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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